by AJ Super
Matthews trailed behind the group in his white robes, the edges getting dusty black with the ore that the miners pulled from the asteroid. A faint buzz reverberated through the walls and the group entered a small cove filled with safety and work equipment.
Isabeau picked up a bright yellow safety hat and put it on, tossing one to Yoon.
Nyx pulled one off the shelf and tapped the hard plasteen with her fingertips. She stuck it on her head and pushed her hair behind her ears. Matthews and Malcam followed suit.
“It’s gonna get loud in there. The machinery isn’t quiet,” Isabeau warned.
“Who works the heavy machinery? How do they get appropriate experience?” Nyx started walking to the heavy iron doors into the mine.
“I assume you’ll change the procedures.” Isabeau pushed the doors open. The heavy pounding of three or four repeating hammers echoed through the mine. The sonorous buzz of a crawler drill somewhere far down in the asteroid vibrated the floor. Nearby, several individual miners covered in black dust hand-dug small veins of the black ore from the open caverns. There was no wasting even the littlest bit of the asteroid’s resource.
The miners paused as the group walked through, their eyes lingering on Nyx. When she passed, they tapped their hearts and kissed their fingers in reverence. Matthews hung back and blessed each of the miners as the group continued on.
“Why do I need to change procedures?” Nyx yelled over the din.
“There are none.” Isabeau leaned into Nyx’s ear and spoke loudly. “Right now, it’s do it and don’t die.”
Nyx nodded and bit her cheek. Isabeau was right. There would need to be training procedures for the equipment. “Can I see them in use?”
Isabeau tipped her head in the direction of one of the louder repeating hammers. They stopped next to a brute of a man, similar in size to Malcam, but darker skinned and with black hair.
He wiped his brow while the repeating hammer slowed, and he settled the heavy mining equipment beside him. “Isabeau.” He nodded and tapped his heart.
She tapped hers and turned to Nyx. “Nyx, this is Berto. He’s been on the heavy equipment for the longest without, um, incident. Berto, I want to introduce you to Nyx.”
“I know who she is. And who she claims to be.” He tapped his heart and kissed his fingers.
“You don’t believe I’m the Star?”
“We have stories about the Star of Nyx here. Sort of prophecies. You seem to have fulfilled at least one of them by overthrowing the ringmasters.” He grimaced. “But one coincidence doesn’t make a prophecy come true.”
Nyx nodded. “I agree, actually. And I’m not here to make prophecies come true.”
“I gathered from your speech.”
Nyx blushed. That was the worst speech ever. And somehow, she had still found some of the miners amicable to following her. She bowed her head and cleared her throat. “Where are you from?”
“Latin American Continental Federation via the North American Union. And I’m leaving as soon as I can get out of here, so don’t bother with your preaching.”
Nyx held up her hands. “That’s fine. It’s your choice. I just want to know about this.” She pointed to the repeating hammer. “How did you get your training? Did you already know how to use it when you were brought here?”
Berto shook his head. “I was just told not to lose a hand or foot and get to work.”
Nyx nodded again. “I see. Would you be willing to come up with a training program for the heavy equipment? There will be a pay increase.”
The buzz of the crawler drill turned into a metallic shriek, and the other hammers stopped pounding. The crash of rock echoed through the mine.
Berto stood straight and yelled, “Arrêtez!” His voice echoed down the tunnels, followed by others’ voices repeating the word.
Nyx narrowed her eyes as the mines became eerily silent. Berto had been mining in a strategic place where his voice could carry to the next miner and they could continue a rolling call if necessary. Why didn’t they have comms down here?
“Do you not have a comm system down here?” she whispered as the silence dragged on and a black dust cloud puffed through the tunnel.
Berto put his finger to his lips and shushed her.
“Q-quatre-deux,” echoed up the corridors, and Berto took off running. Nyx sprinted after him and watched his dusty back turn down tunnels where the dirt cloud had barely settled. She didn’t even notice if her little entourage was following.
Miners were pulling rock off of four bloody, unmoving bodies, and two other miners, a man and a burly woman, both covered head to toe in black dust, were yelling at each other. Berto separated them, pointed to the ceiling, and took them down the tunnels to a quieter place.
Nyx put a hand on one of the miner’s shoulders, and she turned, surprised, and tapped her heart at the sight of Nyx. Nyx shook her head. “Not now. What happened?”
“Hammers and crawlers aren’t supposed to work the same sectors. Cave-in hazard. But the foreman wanted this area cleared by end of day.” The miner lowered her eyes. “It was the only way.”
Nyx understood. The previous, dead foreman wanted more ore coming out of the mines… which meant he was skimming. How much she would have to determine by digging into the books, but she could use this to keep the new Protectorate off of her. One more thing she’d have to get done in the next few days, or the Protectorate would know something was up. She started feeling the weight of taking over the asteroid. Not just as a God, but as someone who had to manage a business venture to fund a war.
She looked at the miners bleeding on the ground. “And them?”
“If we had a doc, they might live.” The miner tapped her heart and kissed her fingers again. “But even minor cave-ins like this mean casualties. We don’t have the resources.”
More like they’re not given the resources. Nyx ground her teeth. And with Doc Lenus still on the Thanatos, she couldn’t just have him use his expertise to help. There had to be something she could do.
Matthews walked up beside her, hands behind his back. “I could give them last rites,” he whispered. “Or you could save them.”
Nyx glared at him. “That would make them immortal.”
“It would be a blessing.”
“Humans aren’t meant to be immortal. Why do you think I’m so careful about who stays alive after I’ve infected them?” After all, Coeus and Joshua had been enormous mistakes to keep alive. She had mistakenly thought Coeus could help Phoebe, and he turned out to be nothing but a traitor, and Joshua was on the cusp of the same, acting as a double agent for Crius’ Underground. There was no telling when either of their immortal powers would come around and cause her problems. And then there was Malcam and Kai…
What was she supposed to do with four more immortal humans who she had no connection with?
“Are you really just going to let them die from wounds that could have easily been healed on the Thanatos?” Matthews asked quietly.
Nyx tipped her head back and sighed. She pulled the knife from her thigh and stepped forward.
The miner woman reached out to Nyx as she walked away and said something, but Nyx didn’t hear her. Matthews pivoted the woman away from Nyx and the two walked away, the woman looking over her shoulder. Nyx furrowed her brow. What had she been trying to say? She shook it off and walked to the group of miners standing around the bloodied figures on the ground trying to bundle up the broken bodies of the barely surviving four and move them.
“Leave them for a moment,” Nyx said hoarsely.
The miners all turned their heads in surprised towards Nyx. She knelt by the first dust blackened head of a man breathing raggedly. She used the tip of her knife to cut across two fingers and placed them on his forehead. She stood and knelt by a petite woman with a terrible head-wound and did the same. She continued to the other two miners in the line and placed her two bloody fingers on their foreheads. Their embers burned bright; she lit their white fires and
sent her tendrils to stoke them high. Each of the miners laying on the ground breathed easier, their colorful energies twining with each other and dancing quietly as their heartbeats synced with Nyx’s.
The miners surrounding Nyx parted, tapping their hearts and kissing their fingers in prayer. She stepped back as the last woman’s eyes fluttered open. They pushed Nyx out of the way while the other three miners, who had been struggling to breathe moments before, woke. Whispers of “They’re healed,” “They’re alive,” and “It’s a miracle,” passed between the miners.
Matthews suddenly appeared by Nyx’s side and then pushed through the small crowd and knelt by the four hurt miners and muttered blessings above them. Then, he raised his hands and bellowed, “You have all been Blessed! Blessed by the Star of Nyx! Everlasting life shall be yours!” Then he continued muttering more prayers.
Berto stomped to Nyx’s side. “So much for it being one prophecy. I think you just fulfilled a second of our stories.”
Nyx looked at him sideways. “Which one?”
“The Four Apostles of Nyx. Harbingers of war.”
Nyx tightened her lips. “I didn’t mean to. Could they even really be considered Apostles? I don’t know them. I don’t even know how religious they are.”
“And I’m sure you don’t even know our stories.”
She cringed. It wasn’t strictly true. The Greene twins had told her the gist of the three major ones. The freeing of the people, the four apostles, and the destruction of the asteroid.
“By default, you were going to make the first of the prophecies come true just by freeing us. It was a way for them to control us through religion and hope… give us something to believe in that could never happen. But it did. Now, it seems that you do have some kind of power to heal…” He paused, and searched Nyx’s eyes. Even if he wouldn’t say it, the words were there. If she had the power to heal, she must also have the power to kill. It was obvious from her time in the ring with the guards as she staked her claim on the asteroid. He continued, “Where this prophecy came from, I imagine it was to make us afraid of the outcome of following the person who freed us. As is the last prophecy, the destruction of what we all, for now, call home.” Berto’s eyes were cold. He tapped his heart and kissed his fingers. “You’ll bring destruction down on all of us, whether or not you are the Star of Nyx.” He shrugged. “But I won’t be here to see it. And you shouldn’t be here either. This area is dangerous. You should continue your tour.”
Nyx nodded and backed away. This was all a little too much anyway. She couldn’t be fulfilling prophecies… That was a bunch of merde. She didn’t know these people. How could they be Apostles of any kind? She turned on her toe and walked brusquely away from the scene. No. This was just all a strange coincidence. And she didn’t have time for coincidences. She had an asteroid to run.
21
“Who just docked?” Nyx asked breathlessly, brushing dust off her forearms as she whipped down the rocky corridor of the mine. It was hard to believe that only two weeks had passed. Or, maybe it was hard to believe that two weeks had passed already? Nyx couldn’t decide. Her days had been filled with hard labor, reverent whispers, and lots of black dirt. She had spent her nights plotting and planning her next steps to rescue her sisters.
Malcam strode beside her, barely a smear of black rock on him, yellow hard-hat in his hands. She couldn’t figure out how he stayed so impossibly clean in the dirty caves echoing with the chunk-chink of rhythmic pounding from miners chipping away at the black ore pockets on the asteroid. He glanced to the side at her, blue eyes frozen. “It’s a Protectorate inspection team.”
Nyx smeared her dirty hand down the smooth side of the hat on her head. “We’ve been sending the correct allotments, right? No one knows we’ve been producing more and skimming.”
Malcam shrugged.
“So, why are they here? Do we have a spy who we don’t know about?”
Malcam shook his head. “The signal we traced earlier is in hand and has nothing to do with the Protectorate. We’re keeping an eye on that one.”
“Do we know who sent it?”
“I suspect Paladichuk…”
Nyx stopped. “Really. Him? A spy? Why? For who?”
Malcam shrugged. “It looks more like some kind of heist set-up. I can ask him. Bring him in for questioning.”
She started walking down the dusty corridor again. “No. Let his plan play out. Let’s have a little fun. Besides, if his heist is happening when I think it might, it could ruin things. We’ll just have to give him a carrot.” She glanced from the side of her eyes. “Then beat him with it.”
“Whatever you want, princess.” He paused. “What about the Protectorate branleur we need to deal with now?”
Nyx pursed her lips. “I guess we’ll just play our parts.” She began to lag behind Malcam as they neared the docking platform and lowered her head. The bay doors opened, and a North American Union representative strode onto the grated walk, followed by a Queensman in white and gold. She was suddenly thankful for the hard-hat and black dust covering her hair, face, and loose mining clothes. The Queensman was one of Phoebe’s attendants, the attendant who took her, Kai, and Erebus to Queen Phoebe what seemed like so long ago to negotiate for the Star of Erebus. She swallowed and clasped her hands in front of her, looking demurely at the ground. He could ruin everything. Blow their cover. Why was it him? Why was he here?
The NAU representative paused. “Where is the foreman?”
Malcam thrust out his hand and smiled. “I’m the new foreman. Nice to meet—”
“What happened to the old foreman?” the stern-faced man growled.
Malcam faltered. They had gone through this with the Protectorate already. Sent in reports. And of course, Malcam had to deal with the freelance cargo ships who took the ore from the asteroid to the Protectorate. He knew his role.
Nyx dug her dirty fingernails into the palms of her hands.
Malcam dropped his arm. “He was… summarily dismissed.” He scrunched his face, looking cross, and a little dangerous.
The NAU representative took a step back. “Why?”
“He was caught skimming. And we don’t cheat the Protectorate.”
Indeed, the foreman had been skimming. But it was so little that no one would have ever noticed, or even cared, so Nyx had ordered the shipments to include the skimmed amount. It made their story about the disappearance of the foreman look legitimate. What the Protectorate didn’t know was that, with properly rested, fed, and motivated workers, they were producing twice as much, including the skimmed amount, and keeping the remainder to fund the warships that Xianlong V was refurbing for them. It only took the last two weeks of extreme hard labor to adjust everything about how Yangxi X worked, but they were starting to see dividends in the last couple days and everything was being reported correctly.
Nyx loosened her grip as the NAU representative nodded. “Good. We were wondering what the uptick in production was from. Very good.” He walked past Malcam and stopped by Nyx, eyeing her. “I’ve had a long journey. I came from La Terre directly. On orders from la reine.”
Nyx flicked a glance in the representative’s direction. He was lying. The queen was no longer on the throne, but the NAU and the ACG were continuing the farce amidst their coup d’état. Nyx’s eyes circled to the Queensman, whose face was blank. He stood, feet shoulder-width apart and arms behind his back. Malcam turned eagerly to the representative and grinned. “Any order from the queen will be recognized here. Shall we show you to guest quarters on the more… sumptuous level?”
Nyx’s breath caught. Isabeau had been in the mines with her that afternoon. Did the astute woman catch the scent of danger when Malcam retrieved Nyx? Did she take some of her workers and populate her harem? Did they have enough time to clean up from the day’s hard labor?
The NAU representative looked Nyx up and down. “I thought all the women were on that level.”
Malcam stepped in between the represe
ntative and Nyx. “The broken ones still have to work, regardless of gender and identity. If they can’t work in the harem, or refuse to, then they get shuffled off to me. This one was a little bit of both.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I even tried my hand at her… She about bit it off. If you know what I mean?”
The NAU representative raised an eyebrow and hissed out a heavy breath. “Disgusting vermin. Better off in the mines then.”
Malcam pulled his lips into a thin line and bobbed his head. “Very much so. But she also makes for a fantastic fighter in the ring, so I keep her nearby as an assistant and bodyguard.”
The representative tilted his head. “Big gentleman like you needs a bodyguard?”
“Why get my hands dirty with the little things?” Malcam shrugged.
Nyx could hear the smile in his voice. He was absolutely serious. Everything he said. It was the truth if she ever heard it. Like he believed it himself. Even to some extent the hand-biting… Because if he had tried, she would bite him. She grit her teeth. Quel branleur.
Malcam clapped a hand on the representative’s shoulder and steered him away. “I’ll show you the guest suites.”
The Queensman started forward, and Nyx slid between him and Malcam, slipping her hand around a small flip-knife in her pocket. She kept her head down, and Malcam turned around. “Your man will have separate quarters, of course.”
The NAU man waved a hand, and he and Malcam walked off, leaving Nyx and Phoebe’s attendant behind.
Nyx cleared her throat and graveled, “If you’ll follow me.” She held up a blackened hand and began to pivot in the direction of Malcam’s muffled laughter.
The Queensman caught her arm and gripped it hard. “She said you’d hide in plain sight, but really?” He sniffed and let her go, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, only to wipe black smears over the white fabric.
